… One surprising innovation, which rapidly became a widespread and popular leisure activity, was the discovery by GL4’s stargazers of the Virtual Observatory. By logging onto the GL4 observatory, users could surf the myriad of planets and stars catalogued in the globe’s compendious image bank, from the comfort and safety of their laptop. Virtual trips to the moon and planets and weekend expeditions to the galactic centre quickly became a popular pastime for the general public.
Surfers reported they could see, hear and to some extent even feel their surroundings with astonishing realism. So convincing was the simulation that some authorities felt obliged to launch a series of public awareness campaigns. GL4 in particular was asked to preface each virtual tour with a liability waiver, informing by means of a large white banner and funereal black lettering the warning PERCEPTUAL OVERLOAD CAN KILL, a notion so preposterous that GL4 readily agreed, with huge success.
Soon it was discovered entirely new phenomena could be studied interactively, using the helpfully provided scientific tools and instrument panel. Learned works by unknown amateurs began flooding the scientific literature, detailing their astonishing discoveries with reams of careful measurements, summarising graphs and closely argued conclusions.
The initiative was fiercely criticised by professional scientists, incensed at hordes of GL4 amateurs trampling over their hallowed fields of learning. The old guard in particular argued bitterly that none of it was real science. But the young bloods were quick to defend their contributions, arguing the Virtual Observatory was simply yet one more amazing new tool for studying the cosmos. New techniques were always, by tradition, suspect in science. Are the observations real or an artefact of the new technology? Are the conclusions falsifiable? It was simply a matter for critical investigation, as it had always been down through the ages, from the invention of the telescope four centuries earlier to the modern anti-proton scannerscope of today.
GL4 authors simply prefaced their work with a qualifier, strangely echoing an earlier era of Riemannian mathematics. ‘If the GL4 Portal is real, the following phenomenon has been observed in …’ Soon, the qualification dwindled to a terse acronym, then disappeared entirely, as the powerful new tool was taken up by hard-pressed professionals finding themselves increasingly edged out from startling new fields of discovery.
Philosophical diehards raised the spectre of covert alien censorship, subtly perverting the course of human knowledge. Mankind they declared, would rue the day it abdicated responsibility in the search for scientific truth. Young enthusiasts merely enquired sweetly of the last occasion philosophy felt inclined to test its wordy pronouncements with mundane observation and measurement.
Besides, what was so new about cosmic censorship? At worst, it was just one more censor, one which, so far, seemed hell-bent on supplying as much data as anyone could reasonably handle. How was it so different to renting time on the Hubble or CERN? Apart from being free of course, and available to all. Philosophers shook their heads wisely. No such thing as a free lunch, they cautioned, determined as ever to have the last word.
And so it was only a question of time before some intrepid stargazer decided to pay NERO a virtual visit. It was while pulling out of a high-gee inverted fin-rattling dive that she sighted it, for Pollyanna was more a frustrated galactic fighter pilot than a dedicated observer of the skies. As she rocketed low and inverted over enemy defences, she caught fleeting sight of a beautiful pink oval, rushing past high and to starboard. She checked her headlong plummet with an accurate split-arsed turn, then doubled back low over her bomb run, only to discover the oval was now flashing red and green. She backed off in one smooth manoeuvre, parking just beyond the anti-proton cannon range to monitor and report the aliens’ cunning new tactic.
But after almost five seconds of complete inactivity (for in truth, Pollyanna was barely nine years old and had not yet had breakfast) she decided to jet out. Time was pressing. She desperately needed to rejoin her squadron of junior cadets now fighting for their young lives in a last ditch attempt to repel the alien invaders and save the blue-green planet.
She trimmed her jet flares and was about to rejoin the fray, when to her amazement she saw the entire oval begin to slide open. She carefully searched the sinister black interior for signs of stars which would indicate the enemy had perfected the dreaded star gate, a breakthrough they’d undoubtedly use to swamp Earth’s defences with millions of laser firing glob pods, the most fearsome gunship in the aliens’ arsenal. Her fingers tensed purposefully, readying themselves over the fire control panel.
For a further three seconds she agonised on how best to proceed. She was about to approach cautiously when, with a loud gasp, she slipped from her kitchen stool, nearly dropping her mother’s laptop. The black interior was lighting up. Powerful violet-white panels flickered on, brightly illuminating thousands of levels down through the interior. As light continued to power on into the distance, Pollyanna began to feel acutely disoriented from staring down the bright precipitous shaft, right through the alien ship and possibly out the other side.
With a caution never previously admitted in her long flying career, she edged carefully towards the opening, continually cautioning herself it was all simulation. At any moment she could hit the pause button, slam the lid shut and drink her cool reviving cola, though she already knew she would never abandon her young warriors. Slowly she edged in, scanning the walls for clues and the first sign of an alien ambush.
Should she decide an up and down now, in the event she needed to manoeuvre instinctively? She prudently decided down was under her bottom and stared into the distance. Ahead she could see a large arrow, flashing alternately red and green and wondered once more if this was some generic form of alien signal. Proceed with caution, she decided. She did.
Distance was becoming a problem as she realised she had no sense of scale. Almost immediately her young courage faltered. She stopped the craft and turned about to check her progress. A black fist clamped fiercely over her young heart when she saw the massive oval door drawing shut. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, squeezing the bridge of her nose as she’d seen her mother do in a downtown traffic jam. After a few seconds she opened them again. The door had closed. She calmly turned her craft around and headed deep into the alien interior.
She must have traveled ten miles she reckoned, and was just beginning to feel a little of her old self again, when she saw something that almost made her wet her pants. Ahead, maybe two hundred yards, from what she preferred to call the roof, hung a huge alien signboard of some description. She edged cautiously up to it and was already drifting gently past, intent once more on the terrain ahead, when she stopped abruptly and re-examined the sign.
It wasn’t that the symbols were unclear or even that she failed to grasp their meaning. It was precisely because she found herself acting implicitly on its message, that she stamped so violently on her retros. She stared long and hard at the holographic signboard, which indicated with crystal clarity that she might now consider turning left for London, right for Washington, up for Moscow, down for Beijing, or proceed ahead for All Other Directions. A sixth arrow, Return To Earth, pointed back the way she had come. It was de-activated.
It was at this point she freely admits her courage failed her. Or, as she preferred to rationalize later, it was perhaps more the case that as a hard-headed tactician, she had already computed the strategic value of turning back. Head for base and report, eat her Coco Pops and return with reinforcements. First though, she had to test the exit route with the same careful professionalism.
Her return was uneventful, save for a heart stopping eternity while she waited for the large oval door to open. The moment relived vivid memories of a grainy old movie she had watched once with Granpaps, recalling the heart chilling words ‘Open the pod bay door, Hal.’ But Hal, if that really was the doorman’s name, was either asleep or AWOL.
She told herself sagely, in the seconds that stretched to consume her entire childhood, that waiting was probably an integral part of adult life. ‘Opening an exterior space door is a major undertaking, not something to be entered into or undertaken lightly,’ she intoned quietly to herself, quoting from her imaginary space cadet manual. She sat patiently, trying to recall just how long she had waited outside, and realising she hadn’t the faintest idea.
Dark thoughts raced through her mind. Had she checked the oxygen supply before gallantly jetting out to defend her brave young charges? What was her current fuel status, weapons readiness, hull integrity and solar flare activity? Under what circumstances might she consider breaking radio silence? What were the latest military protocols on being taken prisoner?
Eventually to her immense relief, and she admits, to a loud accompanying yelp, she saw the door begin to move. She waited calmly until it was almost fully open, then headed slowly out into the star studded blackness of space.
A sudden overwhelming urge to stand on her jets and scream mach 500 for home seized her, but at the last moment and with commendable presence of mind, she parked her craft and turned carefully to observe NERO once more. Pollyanna smiled her gentlest of smiles as she saw the shaft door begin to close. Then she turned, and with an exuberant return of girlish delight, squealed full pelt for home, thinking she might just land out at JFK for the sheer hell of it and buy her mum a Manhattan. Whatever that was.
* * *
When Pollyanna’s discovery hit GL4 it caused an overnight sensation, the website recording a billion hits in just two hours, as news of her incredible experience spread exponentially down the personal contacts tree. With each contact linking on average to eight others, it took barely eleven waves of messaging to alert the entire world to Pollyanna’s amazing adventure.
Her naive and unedited recording of the entire experience immediately endeared her to billions of fans, as even her hesitation and fear was evident in the video replay. Suddenly it seemed, the entire world wanted to explore NERO and travelogue its cities and byways. If the young Pollyanna, with her flushed cheeks and flailing pigtails, was disappointed at not exploring deeper into NERO’s interior, she gave no sign of it, showing genuine delight and a beguiling patience with the endless media attention, all the while offering sound professional advice to her young followers for safely exploring the new world for themselves. To this day GL4 still carries the historic footage, now famously entitled ‘Freaking Jeanie’ after one of her rare but audible expletives.
Strangely, few major surprises awaited the waves of intrepid young explorers who quickly returned to explore and map the New World. For a New World was what it seemed to them, in cheerful defiance of the sour faced professionals who insisted NERO could at best be categorised only a minor planetoid. But with the cubic capacity to swallow the world’s major centres of population and industrial heartlands, no one took any notice, and NERO leapt to global status overnight, one headline famously announcing “Aliens speak the Queen’s English!”
The Axiom of Choice, by Godfrey E. Powell, is available now from Amazon Books.